This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
Logan’s review published on Letterboxd:
This review may contain spoilers.
Yknow when I first saw this movie, it kinda disappointed me. Not in that I hated it on first viewing, I actually liked it a lot, but I expected to like it FAR more than I did. I was already a huge Taika fan, I mean he'll Hunt for the Wilderpeople is on my top 4. I love his filmography and he's one of my favourite directors working right now. So hearing he was not only putting out a new semi-original story post-Thor, meaning he'd have a higher budget/more actors, and then later hearing that it had major awards buzz, that was huge for me. It was my most anticipated movie of the year, the wait from when it released in the US in October to it's eventual January release over here was possibly the most painful wait of my life. I was completely dying to see this film, and finally the day came, I got to see it in a double feature with my other most anticipated movie of the year, Little Women. Then I saw the movie and...
I knew I liked it. I enjoyed it, but there was something about it that I guess threw me off. The tonal shifts that take place in this movie can be brutal. It can go from the most joyous, fun little moment, into complete and utter horror and hatred in mere seconds. One second it's a fun little scene of Jojo running around putting up posters, the next we hardcut to hanging bodies. It sometimes felt like tonal whiplash, unable to firmly root itself as a serious drama or a lighthearted comedy. And that's what I think threw me off at first, I expected it to lean far more into the lighthearted comedy, when in reality it's a mix. The thing that threw me on a first watch was the points where the tone became a bit more blurred. Like in the war scene, it wants you to take it seriously and show you the terror of being amongst war, but also there's silly jokes happening amongst it all. Then there's the cloudy nature of some scenes where we see Jojo saying nasty anti-semetic shit and it's played off as equally funny and legitimate. This whole tone bothered me the whole time, we have this flawed protagonist, living in a world of Nazis, and because of the very real nature of that, it seemed tonally confused at points.
I think this watch really helped me because I knew what to expect with it, so I ended up appreciating what it was doing a lot more. I could tell what it was doing initially, it's just that it wasn't clicking for me personally. Yes, those tone shifts can be jarring at points, but I feel like that's a deliberate choice to open in this fun, bright, quirky world where there's this optimism that everything is great, including the Nazism, that a child in Nazi Germany would be indoctrinated into feeling, and then hitting you with a fat dose of reality that what the Nazis did was horrendous, it shows the process of Jojo's disillusionment from Nazi ideals in a great way, where the funny Hitler quips die down, and he becomes more of the tyrannical monster he really was and less of the charming Taika Waititi figure Jojo built up in his head.
I think the thing I totally forgot going into this movie is Taika's grasp on tragic comedy, or comedy built on flawed characters. Ricky Baker and Hec from Hunt for the Wilderpeople are very flawed in different ways and can do unlikeable things, but they're both rooted in pasts that make you understand their flaws and they really grow over the course of the adventure, Eagle Vs Shark has a flawed couple coming together and finding connection in despite of these flaws, and Boy, despite how I don't like that movie, has a main character who acts really selfishly and he acts out in many ways, but he also has a lot of unchecked issues and emotions brewing in him that cause that outburst of brashness.
In this movie, we have Jojo, who's consumed by the Nazi ideaology, and he says and does some really awful things to both his mother and to Elsa, but they're rooted in the fact that he's been brought up in a world where he's been bombarded with antisemetic propaganda and made to feel like if he isn't part of the Hitler Youth or the army, then he'll be alone, and the social outcast, so he gets wrapped amongst it to fit in. Roman Griffith Davis honestly did such a great job here, for a child performer to carry not only a lot of the comedy but also the dramatic weight of some scenes in here is astounding.
Thomasin Mackenzie, also great. I love that her character was given substantial depth behind her. Like she isn't just a sad, scared Jewish girl living in the walls, she's a person, she is sarcastic, she has optimism, hopes and dreams, she had a family and a life before the war, she's just a teenage girl.
Scarlett Johansson does a great job as the French African American Schizophrenic German mother. I would not say she's "Best Supporting Actress" levels of good, but she still remains as the centre piece of what the movie wants to say, that love will triumph over hate, that you need to fight hate in any way you can and to always strive for peace. And I do feel like her death is a little exploitative, but it also does serve to show how fucking brutal the Nazis were. It's definitely one of those moments where I both understood the tone shift, but also it felt so jarring to suddenly go to.
The supporting cast were great. Archie Yates is god damn iconic and steals every scene he's in, Sam Rockwell yet again plays a racist who has a redemption arc, Rebel Wilson sometimes felt too improv-y but I still found her very funny. The scene with Stephen Merchant as the Gestapo agent is I think the best example of how great the movie can go from being really funny and silly to tense and unnerving.
This rewatch also affirmed to me that the Oscars technical noms are pretty deserved. The production design is solid, the house especially is very interesting and colourful. The costume design here is all very well done. I think Giacchino does a fantastic job score wise. He's created reoccurring motifs for both Jojo and Rosie that stuck with me and propelled some of these scenes. Even the editing, which I was shocked to see in the Oscar race, on reflection was actually very solid, it's tightly cut together, there's time for shots to breath and the editing choices bring out a lot of comedy and heart to some scenes.
I've come around on this movie a lot, and as I write this review, we are moments away from Taika probably winning Adapted Screenplay for this movie and I've gotta say I feel like it's well deserved (although Greta should be winning, but that's just me). I think this movie is incredible, its completely heartwarming and heartbreaking, it's by no means his best film, but it's the largest scale film Taika has made in terms of its messaging and its scope, and it lands it fairly successfully, despite some getting used to.
UPDATE: whoop, there it is, Oscar Winner Taika Waititi everybody